The New Cycle
by GalacticLad
Summary: The Reapers are defeated. The nations of the galaxy have succeeded in destroying the ancient exterminators, but at great cost. Hundreds of worlds have been devastated, and the mass relays are severely damaged. A vacuum of power has been opened, and if the galaxy cannot remain united, it will fall divided. Meanwhile, millions of miles from Earth, the crew of a lost ship voyage home.
1. Prologue: Stargazer

That night, on that world, there they were.

One of them was a man, who someone might have called an old man, forgetful or just unknowing of how gross of an understatement that would be. The man was old, older by far than some nations. Some days he woke up and couldn't quite remember how many of far mother Earth's years had passed since he'd been born; not because he'd gone senile, but because a digit here or there swapped itself in his mind.

The man who would come out every night to stare up at the alien sky had a name, and names. A name he'd been given at birth and many more he'd carried over the years. Everywhere he went he seemed to come up with a new thing to call himself, or to be called by the people of the new place he was in; names as numerous as the shimmering stars his beloved sky. Just like each of those stars, he could be called a dozen different things by the people he lived on all the many worlds that could look upon its ancient glory, but no matter where he was, the people there would be seeing the same light.

He'd taken one name when he left his birth world to plough the stars. One name when he'd taken a wife, and one when he'd taken another. Titles he'd earned or made up on adventures. People on this planet or that sometimes gave him names, but he usually stuck with his own. But here, on this cold world, he found a comfortable name from the people he'd found living there: Stargazer.

Ulysses was with him tonight. The son of a son of a daughter of his, though there were probably more degrees of separation than that. A child who could still count his age on his hands next to a man of eons. In his life, Stargazer had gotten to meet many generations of his own descendants, but few were as alike to him as Ulysses. In an age of the impossible, few of his kin had such a love for stars and stories.

He had many to tell. Stargazer's own life could fill volumes, but only a few of the tales that he told to Ulysses were his own. He'd already spun his most exciting and significant yarns to the boy, so he most often fell back on the legends and myths of old. The most famous fairy tales from Earth, Thessia, Parnack, and other storied worlds. And with a galaxy so large, a good many were based in truth.

The chronicles of Shepard were the greatest of all. Stargazer had just finished telling Ulysses the greatest leg of the saga. The night was dark and snow filled the air, the boy and he were surrounded by the light of a neighboring world so close he sometimes thought he could touch it.

Ulysses nudged closer. "Did that all really happen?"

_All of it? Not a prayer_, thought the Stargazer. No amount of fact could eliminate every nugget of untruth from a story. Even the most told, researched, and retold story of all time. Stargazer personally felt that most of the parts that took place on Tuchanka were embellished, as very little record survived Shepard's missions there before, during or after the war, but that may have been his own biases talking. For all he knew, Shepard had never even traversed the Omega-4 Relay, or battled androids on Mars, or battled for the fate of the galaxy on the Citadel over Earth, not once but twice.

"Yes, but some of the details have been lost in time," he answered. "It all happened so long ago."

"When can I go to the stars?"

Stargazer smirked. Ulysses flit from idea to idea like a sparrow. Another child might have shyly asked if they could ever live the adventures Shepard and his crew had lived, before then broaching the more realistic topic of space travel. Not Ulysses. He was ready to live those adventures. All he needed was a ride.

"One day, my sweet." He ran his fingers through the boys hair, soft and cold like the snow.

"What will we find there," Ulysses asked.

"Anything you can imagine. Our galaxy has billions of stars." Stargazer pointed at no one of them in particular. He'd lived for eons, and likely would a few more, but the rigors of biological age still made it difficult to raise his arm for more than a moment. "Each of them could have many worlds. Every world could be home to a different form of life. And every life has a special story of its own."

For a moment, Ulysses, Stargazer, and the entire world around them were silent. Uncountable stars were filling Ulysses' head. Stargazer could almost feel the ideas bursting like so many supernovas as he rustled his grandchild's hair once again.

After about five minutes of silence, Ulysses spoke again. "Tell me another story about the Shepard."

_The _Shepard. One man had distinguished himself above all other humans, all other beings, in the span of one of the meager lifetimes humans once lived so long ago. In the modern day, human identities were as fluid as water. Stargazer was a name bestowed by people who knew the man very well, but there had to have been a billion other "Stargazers" out there.

There was only one Shepard. There would only ever be.

Stargazer's heart thumped in his chest. Before, the cold of the alien world had begun to nip at his fingers and toes as it worked its way into him. He'd been able to ignore it while in the throes of Shepard's tale, but the boy's enthusiasm reinvigorated him. His old eyelids had begun to droop as well, but they opened wide as he looked back down at the child's round face. Ulysses wouldn't sleep until he'd heard the rest. Most likely, neither would Stargazer now that the details were piling back in.

"It's getting late, but…okay…one more story." He looked once again at Ulysses. His face hardened, the stern mask dozens of children knew as the one grandpa put on when you needed to hear something serious. "I will warn you, boy. This story is different than the other one. If I stop now, you'll go to bed with the happy ending. The one all of your friends at school know. Shepard defeats the Reapers. The galaxy is saved, and his crew returns home. That's the end I could leave you with now."

Ulysses locked eyes with him, and for a moment they were both staring into the stars again. Then Ulysses looked away, big thoughts in his little head. Stargazer continued.

"It's as grand a story as the last, but it's not of the same cloth. The triumphs of our heroes don't come after the trumpets of battle, where they are surrounded by friends and allies. In this story, the gasp for breath and choke on the ashes of the war that they won. The heroes of this story may enter into it as its villains, commit horrible deeds in the name of survival, but then return. It's a story of starvation, desperation, and fear. Not the type of story that makes it into your films and sims. This story is nothing like the world you know, boy."

"Tell me," said Ulysses.

He did.

* * *

**Hello there. If you made it this far, that means you've read through my little rambling prologue that I hope turns into something bigger. Thanks for that! I've had the ideas for a post-ME3 story rattling around in my head for a while now and I finally found the will to actually put it out there. **

**I don't have much to say at the moment, and I hope to be able to keep author notes to a minimum, but thanks for reading. And thanks to Bioware for the universe (and ME3 epilogue dialogue) that I'm borrowing. I'll try to put it to good use.**

**That's it for now. Hope to be back soon.**

**(GL)**


	2. Chapter 1

**_SSV Everest, _Arcturus System : Hackett **

**Crucible Event +0**

For all he knew, Hackett could have been in the afterlife. Heaven, as his mother's faith would call it, or else whatever the great cosmic reward that awaited the worthy was called. An eternity like this wouldn't be bad for a man like him. Standing at the bridge of a ship alongside a crew he knew and trusted, sailing the endless expanse of space for all time was about as good an eternal reward as he could ask for. But with the unavoidable knowledge that he'd just sent tens of millions to their deaths along with the very real possibility that the fight was not yet over and the Reapers still hunted him, Hackett could also have been in hell.

But he knew he was alive. His forehead had been sliced open when his ship had trembled from the force of Reaper fire, and the barely dressed wound still throbbed and burned. His bridge crew chattered back and forth with news of casualties on his own ship, people trapped at their stations, decks aflame. It couldn't be heaven, because the universe wouldn't seem to let them just die yet.

"Diaz. Give me fleet casualties," Hackett said. His order came as a dry croak, and Hackett's brain was reminded that a drink of water should probably have a reasonably high priority at the moment.

Across from him at the command station, his XO swiped at the holographic readout. "Things were getting spotty towards the end, sir. Several thousand reports came in at once right before the Crucible fired, and we may not have logged them all."

"Best estimate, then," Hackett responded.

"Sword Fleet estimated casualties: seventy-eight percent. Shield Fleet estimated casualties: fifty-five percent. Hammer Ground Forces." She hesitated. Swiped through a few more reports before giving in.

"Unknown, sir. Estimated between ninety percent and total."

Hackett's response was a solemn nod. _Total casualties_. Statistically speaking, it was improbable that the Reapers could have destroyed the entirety of the galaxy's congregate assault force in the span of the battle. Possible for them, but not likely. It wasn't hard enough for Hackett to imagine that they'd come close enough. It had not been easy to keep current on the ground war from high up in the sky, but Hackett knew Hammer's camps and positions had been overrun one by one, and their desperate charge for the beam had been utterly shattered by Harbinger. Had Shepard and Anderson not made it, Hammer probably wouldn't have had another shot.

"Do we know if the Crucible succeeded? What's the status of the Reapers in the Sol system?" Energy had poured out of the Crucible in unimaginable quantities, but that wasn't a guarantee. As soon as it began, Hackett had sounded the retreat to Arcturus. Their gambit could have failed.

"Based on the scans ships got back just as we were jumping out-"

She was cut out by the blare of the general quarters alarm. Monitors displaying the orange of hazard reports were joined by the angry crimson of battle. The attitude of the CIC went from frantic to panicked.

"Sir, multiple contacts emerging from the Exodus Relay!"

"The _Istanbul _is reads at least fifty capital ships, several dozen support craft!"

"Confirmed, intercept course. They are on a confirmed intercept course for the fleet."

"Hull configuration is a match. It's Reapers, sir."

Hackett waved his hand to pull up his own tactical readout of the coming battle. It wasn't until he withdrew his hand that he noticed it was shaking. His head wound throbbed furiously as his face contorted. _Veteran of a hundred battles. Humanities fearless leader. Now I start shaking_.

It made sense, he supposed. At Earth, the Cerberus base, any of his skirmishes with the Reapers over the course of the last year, he'd led his forces into battle knowing that today _could be_ the day he died. Today, he knew for sure.

It terrified him how comforting it was, just to be sure for once.

It had to be battle. Hackett had picked Arcturus for the fallback point since it meant two possible mass relays to escape through if they'd lost, and only a short trip back if they'd won. But the Reaper rearguard had beat the to the punch. They'd be in firing range before their ships could reach either relay at subluminal speeds, and charging up the FTL drives for a jump would be cutting it awfully close. So this was it.

Admiral Hackett gave his final orders. He didn't give a farewell speech, or even anything special to his own crew, many of whom he considered friends. He owed them the honor of dying in battle without having to hear a well-articulated dialogue on how they were about to die.

The fleets regrouped. The shields were raised, and what fighters that were left were deployed. All ships were free to engage, to take what shots they could. Hackett waited, bracing himself for when his ship would shudder as it fired its bullets that could shatter a continent. The Reapers, with their massive cannons, would get the privilege of firing first.

On his screen, the firing range of the Reapers was displayed as a ring of crimson around their advancing fleet. The allied fleet was represented in blue, and their pitifully narrow circle would have to wait far longer until the ships could fire and hope to hit anything.

A second ticked by, and death crept closer.

Another second, as the ships hurtled thousands of kilometers closer through space and inches closer on the board. The red circle would overlap with them far sooner than the reverse being true.

Another second. Hackett locked eyes with Diaz, just as stoic and just as afraid as he was, and the two shared the closest thing to a goodbye either would commit to.

Another second down, far too few to go. Frantic reports coming in from his crew. Ships panicking and entering FTL. The turians where charging headfirst at the enemy to die well.

An alarm whooped, and an officer reported that they had entered effective enemy range. The Reapers could kill them all now.

A second ticked by, and they didn't.

"Nasimiyu, what's going on out there? Why haven't the Reapers engaged?" The Reapers were never ones to wait. When they could kill, they killed and were damn quick about it. Hackett didn't even want to think of what the alternative could mean out of fear of willing it to be untrue.

His crew began appraising him on the _Everest's _sensor readings. From the others in the fleet as well. They came in all in agreement. The Reapers were approaching at speeds consistent with their past attack velocities. Arrayed in an attack formation, albeit a loose one. The circles of range on Hackett's readout had well overlapped one another when the first of the new confirmations started coming in.

"Sir, new data in from the _Cyone Dancer_. Forwarding it to you now!" The young officer could hardly contain his elation, seeming like he'd leap up and hand deliver the data to Hackett. But as the old admiral beheld the information himself, joy welled up in him as well.

"Energy signatures confirmed from the Reapers, but its not being _generated_. It's dissipating, fast." The officer turned around in his seat, facing Hackett in the rest. "It's residual energy. Perfectly matching the Crucible buildup. They're dead!"

The CIC erupted. Cheers and clapping and laughter and crying filled the room that had been as silent as the grave a moment earlier. Some hugged, and Hackett glimpsed a couple locked in a kiss. He shook Diaz's hand, followed by the hand of his security chief as the infectious joy hit him as well.

Over the next few hours, Hackett and the other flag officers of the fleet tore themselves away from the impromptu victory celebrations to take better stock of their situation. The _Everest's _estimates of losses were in the right ballpark; the allied fleet could only account for a scant few thousand ships of the tens of thousands that had flown into battle over Earth. The Reapers that had appeared in Arcturus had been struck by the Crucible mid-transit, their inertia hurling them at the allied fleet at near deadly speeds. Had there been just a little more life in them, the survivors wouldn't have stood a chance.

Salarian elements of the fleet reported that STG "all clear" transponder codes had been received from Earth, and a few ships claimed to have heard echoes of transmissions sent from ships still in Sol. It appeared there would be an Earth to go back to.

Hackett had comms open up a general channel to all ships. Speeches were a topic Hackett was well versed in, probably as much as warfare and definitely more so than politics. He'd been there in the early days on the Alliance Navy when the flag officers of humanity's first interstellar fighting forces were clambering over one another to submit their own overwritten "one small step" analog to enter the annals of human memory. They were mostly garbage and evoked way too much grand interstellar imagery for a society that was only just putting on their first pair of space boots, but there had been a few winners Hackett could recall. Small speeches given to small crowds like the crews he had been on, about how out in the great dark expanse all they'd have were one another cramped into a fragile bubble of air, while every human soul awaited their success back home. Hackett remembered those speeches much more fondly than the ones that he'd heard in any auditorium. He liked his to be short and specific, their purpose to leave the audience knowing exactly what they needed to know.

"This is Fleet Admiral Steven Hackett aboard the _SSV Everest_. If you are hearing this message, then you have survived the worst the universe could throw at us. The Reapers are no more. We've won. There will be a time soon to celebrate, and to mourn our dead. But first we need to begin recovery. The healing will be slow, but nothing save for time stands in our way now. I advise anyone hearing this transmission to return to Earth as soon as possible. We will begin restoration and relief efforts there. Hackett out."

"Message has been sent, sir." Yazhu, his comms officer swiped a digital screen aside and set to work on another. "We're getting acknowledgement from all fleets. Plenty of affirmatives."

"Very good," said Hackett. His wound throbbed, and for the first time since he'd earned it, nearly a day ago in a battle for the future of the galaxy, he had the thought to take a walk down to the med bay and get it looked at. Plenty of time now.

"Diaz, you have the deck. I'm headed to Doctor Hillar," Hackett said as he turned for the lift.

"Yes, sir."

He stopped. "You sound hesitant, Commander. Thoughts?"

"Sir, if the scans we took when we reached the system are right, the relays are damaged. Badly. The trip from here to Earth at FTL is only a few days, but outside the cluster? We're talking months or years."

Hackett frowned, and his wound was again numbed by thought. There it was, the next big problem. The Reapers couldn't be dead for more than a few minutes before that came along.

"We'll figure that out when we get there, Commander. For now, take us to Earth. Take us home."

* * *

**London, Earth : Miranda**

**Crucible Event + 3**

She awoke in darkness. Her head was wracked by a sharp pain on one hand and slow to wake up on the other, so she couldn't even tell what she heard or smelled yet. With nothing to draw on for context, her brain began to tiptoe over the line between rest and panic. Primitive urges that reckoned if she didn't know where she was, it might be somewhere dangerous. Miranda breathed deeply, and leaned back to her side of the line.

Smell returned to her as she inhaled through her nostrils. Nylon, and sweat. Human sweat, and definitely her own. Still in her tent, she reasoned, and from the way that the sound of her breathing returned to her, most likely alone.

She could hear outside, but it was difficult to discern what was near and what was far. Shuttles landed and took off, soldiers shouted and grunted, and very rarely laughed. Heavy treads over the gravel and debris. Crying, laughing, shouting, screaming. The sounds of a war that was done but not yet over.

Propping herself on her elbow, Miranda reached to where her water bottle had been last night when she'd taken her final sip before falling dead asleep. Her fingertips brushed its surface when another migraine wracked her skull. She didn't bother trying not to scream.

In the thick of the pain, it was easy for a mind to let itself stop keeping track of time to avoid recognizing just how long the body was under strain. Miranda forced herself to count heartbeats as she writhed on the cot. Nineteen past by the time the flaps of her tent were thrust open and heavy boots pounded in.

"Miranda!" She needed no clues to discern Jacob Taylor's voice, but the ozone smell of biotics had proceeded him, and she knew the rhythm of his movements when he ran.

"Took you twice as long," she said in a near whisper, attempting to prop herself up.

Gravel crunched as he rushed to her side, helping her up the rest of the way. "Can only stand around for so long before they expect you to get to work like everyone else."

"Don't they know who Jacob Taylor is? Or who is friend is, more importantly."

"Everyone here's a war hero. Can't pull that routine," Jacob said. Miranda felt her water bottle placed in her grip. Before the war, she'd have been ashamed at requiring someone's help to do something as mundane as sitting up in bed or quenching her thirst. For her own sake and for his, she could suspend her pride for the time being.

She drank greedily, and was disappointed by the gulp and a half the bottle produced before it was emptied. By now, the wave of pain was wearing off, and the energizing endorphins with it.

"I'm sorry you've been glued to my side. I'd be out there with you if I could."

"I know," said Jacob, a hand clapping down on her shoulder. "And before you ask, the answer's still no."

Miranda managed a grin. "You aren't my doctor, Taylor."

"I could find a dozen medics to explain to you why leaving your bed would be a horrendously bad idea," Jacob retorted.

"And I could present nuanced counterarguments to their medical opinions."

"Yeah. Yeah, you probably could," said Jacob in mock resignation. But they did share an understanding, and she didn't press the issue.

Time had lost a lot of its meaning since the Reapers died. When the Crucible had been activated, Miranda had been in the center of it all. She'd heard the titanic corpses of the machines tumble to the ground as all across the city, the howls of their undead army fell silent. Shouts and weeping and celebratory gunfire filled the air. Before they even really knew for sure what was happening, the allied forces were declaring in all possible ways that they had won.

Miranda had heard it all. But blinded, she'd seen none of it.

She had her theories, as ever. Hours of use of her biotics bordering on overuse, and not enough water or electrolytes to replenish them. Bursts of adrenaline between this firefight and that one as she fought throughout the city, dodging bullets and explosion. The latter certainly wouldn't have done her any favors, whether they'd been nearby grenade drops, airstrikes, or ships in orbit briefly giving off a comparable amount of lumens as a star as the Reapers decimated them. Any one of those things, or more likely a combination, had at some point turned Miranda's sight into a flare of light that never left the center of her vision, and then nothing at all. Miranda could remember much, but not all, for trying to think about the moment where it all came to a head only rewarded her with another splitting headache. It seemed the blindness had seared itself into her memory as well.

Miranda's usual response would be action. It was the cure to any ailment. Take in all the data points, develop working hypotheses, and then putting them into action. But the blindness and splitting headaches made that near impossible to do by herself, and with most of the medical attention being directed towards the dying, Miranda could only sit and recover in whatever ways her body could manage on its own for now.

Jacob must have been able to read the frustration on her face. This served only to frustrate Miranda further, unable to read others or to tell if she was be read.

"I know this isn't your style, Miranda. But that big brain of yours must be telling you that the more time you spend here, the sooner you'll be able to join us out there," Jacob said, emboldened by Miranda having agreed with him. Back in their SR2 days, they'd butted heads so regularly as to make her agreement seem like a foreign delicacy to him. He always took it like a shot.

"My 'big brain' is mostly throbbing excruciatingly, but I unfortunately concede your point," said Miranda. Not much point in fighting when even Jacob could tell how it was. No offense to him, she thought.

The ex-marine chuckled dryly. "First we beat the Reapers, now Miranda Lawson is saying I'm right. What next?"

"Galactic peace. Cats and dogs in perfect harmony."

The two shared another chuckle, ending with Miranda wincing as pain lanced through her skull again. Jacob was silent, but Miranda heard the slightest shuffle of gravel. She figured he'd had a quick internal debate on whether or not to help her back into a laying position, but decided against adding insult to injury to Miranda. Good choice on his part, but even the thought of it now made her feel frailer.

"I'll be in and out if you need anything," Jacob assured her. "I know I've probably hit my limit for how much advice you'd take from me, but I'd probably give yourself a couple more days on the mend before you tried anything bold."

She let out a heavy sigh. "A couple more. Meaning it's already been at least one?"

"Yeah," Jacob said, not realizing the impression she'd been under fully until now. Miranda had thought she'd just went to sleep for the night, maybe even a short series of naps interspersed with murky semi-lucid consciousness.

"How many?"

"Three. Had medics check you out, they said you sleeping deep was a good thing."

Her headache returned again, and just as she was dredging up another sickening thought. Jacob not telling her yet was as grievous as a lie of omission at this point, either that or the news was so grim even he was struggling with coming out with it.

"Shepard," Miranda said through gritted teeth as another headache struck her like a hammer. "Any more news."

"Not yet," Jacob said. He said it like a boy fishing for an answer for his mother that he'd rather not bring up. "Went up to the Crucible. Didn't come back down. I've heard some scuttlebutt teams on the wreck of the station are combing for survivors, but no Shepard yet."

Miranda tried to get up, and this time Jacob did rush over to physically stop her. She pushed against him for a moment, but one of his hands came into hers, clasping it. But it was comforting, not forceful. She felt his shoulders slacken as he surrendered.

"Miranda, you _can't _be out there right now."

"There needs to be direction here, or this all falls apart. Shepard brought them all here. I brought Shepard back from the dead. They need my help."

"I don't disagree with you, Miranda, but-"

With their short scuffle and the following debate, the sound of jogging footsteps approaching the time had been hidden from Miranda's ears. She heard the tent flaps swatted aside and the light panting of another person. Jacob gracefully pivoted from facing her on the cot towards the entrance, and she felt his right hand go from clasped to hers to where his waist would be, clasping his gun.

"Is Miranda Lawson here?" asked a tired human male. Military for sure by the way his voice carried evenly from beginning to end, no dips or trailing off. Precious few non-military personnel in the allied camp nonetheless.

"Might be," said Jacob. Both of their relationships with the Systems Alliance had been awkward at best and legally tenuous often, so the possibility of arrest during or after the war had been a subject they'd discussed at length. They could have sat in the tent and debated about anything all day, but she knew they were still on the same page for what they'd do if it came down to this scenario.

"It is," Miranda answered, swinging her legs onto the ground and herself up into a sitting position. Weirdly enough, the sudden vertigo cancelled the new wave of headaches a somewhat. Small blessings, she thought.

"I'm going to need you to come with me, ma'am. You too, Mister Taylor."

"Appreciate the invite," Jacob responded curtly. "But I have plans tonight. Mind if I ask where we're going and who is asking?"

"We're going to the central command pavilion. Major Coats asked for Miss Lawson specifically. He said her expert advice was needed."

Miranda felt a whole new headache coming on. The number of subjects she could be considered an expert in was substantial, not to toot her own horn. But practically when it came to people asking for her expertise, she felt like an artist with a lifetime's work in her repertoire that was only ever asked to play two songs. Most people only asked for Miranda's expertise when it came to two specific subjects.

The first thing was John Shepard. The second was Cerberus.


	3. Chapter 2

London, Earth : Fred Shannon

Crucible Event + 3

The roar of battle for Earth had been followed by a quiet unlike any other Fred had ever experienced. All over the planet, the crashing of thunder rang out as ships entered the atmosphere and discharged their weapons of mass destruction upon each other. On the ground, people screamed and cried and died as they joined their voices, and the voices of their own weapons, to the song that was to be the last act of the Reapers' war.

Or more accurately, its eleventh-hour number. That final loud, rousing song that made sure the audience was still awake for the finale. Cerberus was still alive, after all. That meant there was more to be done.

After the Reapers had died, crumpling where they stood or plummeting to the Earth, the ash began to fall as well. It blanketed every surface of the scabbed over battlefield, spouse to the silence. The allied forces had withdrawn to the center of the city, or to their ships in orbit. The only living thing Fred had seen other than Wheeler and Kadek were two dogs tearing at something in the street. Probably a human or turian or one of the other allied races, or maybe even one of the Reaper foot soldiers. Things as starving as those animals wouldn't differentiate.

His two living squad mates were all that remained of everyone he'd ever known. In the suffocating silence of the post-Reaper galaxy, they could have been the last humans alive.

When he was a kid and heard stories about "reapers," he'd pictured robed skeletons with scythes rather than kilometer tall machine exterminators. But this was more like what he imagined. Not the pitched battles for the fates of worlds. The quiet graveyard that came after, where Death took its tally.

The three made their way through the carcass of one of Earth's most ancient cities, Fred in the back, Wheeler in the front, and Kadek in the middle. When Crucible had discharged its energy burst and the Reapers had died, fate placed one of the corpses just on top of the apartment building next to the one they had been holed up in. The rubble that crushed Kadek's leg would have made amputation necessary if a few beams had shifted this way to the left or that way to the right, but fate had given her that much. Two days they spent resting. On the third, she stood up, declared it was time to go, and limped ahead in the lead. Wheeler had relieved her of that, and now the big man set the pace.

They had places to be. PANDORA Protocol was active, and all Cerberus personnel were to converge on local rally points with extreme haste.

Fred knew nothing about what it was or what it meant. Thus was the nature of Cerberus. A day before they'd begun their trek, Wheeler had stated as much, but refusing to leave a third of his remaining troopers behind, put a three-day timer on Kadek's recovery. Maybe as a courtesy, she'd taken only a two days of that.

As Fred rounded a corner behind the still hobbling Kadek, he found Wheeler pressed up against an upturned bus, head titled ever so slightly around the corner. His head did not move, but a closed fist thrust up beside, and then a twitch of the fingers it; his signal to stop, and approach carefully. They were still radio silent, and relied on hand signals and voice alone.

Crouching, Fred approached behind Kadek. Her legs looked close to collapsing, but he assumed if he could see her face under her helmet, he wouldn't find a hint of that.

She pressed up next to Wheeler, and Fred next to her. Wheeler did not acknowledge them, and continued looking at whatever he was looking at. Or for.

"Activity?" Kadek said in a low voice, barely a hum of her throat.

"No," said Wheeler. "Destination."

Fred wanted to pull up his omni-tool uplink and check for any Cerberus satellites that might have escaped the Reaper's notice, but that would have violated mission parameters. Silent was silent. The navigated only by intuition and whatever device or signal or map was leading Wheeler.

"Kadek, drone. Thirty ten meters radius."

"On it."

Kadek tapped two keys on her omni, and the holographic sphere glowed to life. She tapped another key and set it on its path. Floating behind cover that would block it from sight ahead of them, Fred watch it drift into a shattered storefront before vanishing. Normally, his tactical goggles would be able to uplink with the friendly drone and see what it saw, but not on this mission. The drone would take in its data, come back, then upload to Kadek's HUD.

Or get shot first. Even then though, it would have succeeded.

It returned fifteen minutes later, only this time on Fred's right. It vanished in a wave of Kadek's hand, and she almost immediately nodded to Wheeler. His fist rose again, this time with his index, middle, and ring fingers raised. His ring finger fell, then his middle, and then his index. In less time than it would have taken to drop another finger, he pivoted around the corner and broke into a low run. Struggling, Kadek followed, and then Fred.

* * *

The pile of glass and concrete that had once been an office building had something written in large metal letters. The last one had been "Energy," and the second something that ended in "-ater." Perhaps the headquarters of a water and power company once, but it probably never again. Who was to say how many of the people who worked there had died when the Reapers came. The writing on the building meant nothing anymore; the Reapers had robbed them of their meaning.

They had entered through what was maybe once a door, or maybe had just been part of the wall when the building was still whole. Weapon mounted flashlights on, they'd entered the depths of the building, using the stairs where they could and the elevator shaft's ladders when they couldn't. In the basement corridors where they might expect to find boiler rooms and rats, they found what was apparently a receptacle for some code or verification. It looked to Fred like a bare wall, but Wheeler hunched over it, did something Fred could not see, and the wall swung open. The tunnel it revealed was lit by dull blue LED strips, and was wide enough for two of them to walk side by side, but just barely.

Wheeler entered first, then stopped to help Kadek in. The first signs of care he'd shown to her since offering seventy two hours and not a second more for her to heal her shattered leg. Fred entered, and Wheeler did something behind him. The wall slammed shut, and Wheeler slumped against it.

"Hell…" It was all he muttered before propping himself against the wall and remaining there, still and silent, for nearly ten minutes.

Kadek read his mood as needing the time, and so began to slide down to the ground to take the pressure off her good leg. Fred helped her.

Fred was standing back up when something clattered to the ground, nearly prompting him to grab his gun. When he saw Wheeler's bare face, he realized it had been his helmet.

"We're on mission," said Kadek, barely more than whispering. "You could get shot for that."

"You gonna do it?" Wheeler said. She snorted, then took off her own. She reached up and undid the bun that held up her hair, and it fell in one black knot to just beneath her ears.

Fred kept his own tactical mask on. He was never one to just roll with the crowd, even when the crowd was two officers technically superior to himself. Plus, if they were being rebels, he felt justified in indulging his own curiosity.

Subtly, he flicked on his tactical visor. Without his own helmet on, Wheeler would not be able to tell. His HUD began to talk to him about where he was, and it told him more than he'd expected to hear. Many meters underground, far from the prying eyes of the Alliance. The area immediately around him was far warmer than it was outside the tunnel, and electrical signatures confirmed that a number of generators were around him. He was also shown a number of open radio channels that had accepted him as friendly, with messages coming in and going out, but mostly going out.

It seemed to Fred like they'd reached Pandora's Box.

Wheeler knelt and scooped up his helmet; he hadn't been petrified by the sudden relief of safety after all. He helped Kadek to her feet.

"Breaks over," he said, taking point down the tunnel. "That's all we get. Next time we rest is when they tell us we can rest."

_Who is they?_ Fred wanted to ask, but held his tongue. That was not a workplace friendly question with Cerberus.

The tunnel seemed to go on for kilometers, but his HUD told him that the trio had yet to even walk one. Subtle indents in the wall implied to Fred that other tunnels in the area, maybe even all over London, fed into this one. Whoever had built this bunker liked their hidden doors.

Wheeler and Kadek walked ahead of him, and so most of what lay ahead was hidden. But when both hurriedly donned their helmets and drew their weapons, Fred knew it must have been bad.

Or not. They lowered them quickly, and began to shuffle forward a little faster. Fred tried to match Wheeler, but it was getting hard not to trip over Kadek.

"Welcome," a voice called, echoing off the tight metal walls. "You just as lost as us?"

"Cut the small talk, time's wasting," said Wheeler tersely. Something about the man speaking with others in the same way he spoke to Fred and his squad mates was comforting, like listening to a parent yell at a sibling.

Wheeler's bulk hid most of what was in front, but past Kadek, Wheeler saw three more white and gold clad troopers, and a metal blast door the width of the tunnel. There was no clear point of entry.

"How long have you been here?" Wheeler asked, holstering his weapon.

"Ten minutes. Fifteen, maybe," one of the troopers responded. His accent sounded Welsh. "Voice on the other end told us you were coming, so we waited."

Wheeler nodded. Fred heard three pops, helmets disconnecting from their suit's systems, as the other troopers took off their helmets. He could see one man, fair skinned with closely shaved brown hair, and half of a shorter woman with skin a shade darker than her companion's. The other trooper was blocked off by Wheeler.

"See the Aug troopers on the way?" the brown-haired man asked, his voice matching the one Fred had just heard.

"A few," said Wheeler, "And watched them drop when the Crucible went off. Wasn't pretty."

"Aftermath wasn't any better" the short woman said. Her accent was faint, but Fred thought he heard traces of Spanish. "Wires and implants under their skin popped. We saw goo oozing out of their ears."

"The stuff crystalized when it hit the air," said the trooper Fred could not see. His accent was definitively Icelandic. "Blue, it was. Not any color you'd expect to see come out of a human."

"They weren't human anymore," said the woman, and Fred clenched his teeth. All it took was the most subtle raise in Wheeler's shoulders to indicate to Fred that the man was entering the early stages of fight prep.

"Illusive Man made that call," he growled, wolf-like. "Augmented Cerberus is still Cerberus. They fought humanity's foes better than we all could."

"Did they?" the Welsh man said, cockily. "All dead, far as I can tell. Us home-grown homo sapiens are all that's left now, chum."

"Chum" seemed accurate to what the man would be when Wheeler got done with him. He'd made it clear that weakness and lollygagging from that point on would not be tolerated while they were on the Illusive Man's time, but questions on their supreme leader's authority didn't seem to be covered by that. The first post-apocalyptic Cerberus infighting was stopped only as a voice chimed from the ceiling.

_"Input PANDORA Protocol identification._" Wheeler dropped his aggression immediately, activating his omni-tool and broadcasting his code. Fred and Kadek were right behind him in doing so. With slight hesitance, the other three complied too.

The second the last of them sent their codes, the doors swooshed open. Cool air flew into Fred's nostrils, on it the smell of engine exhaust and mulch. They entered, the door slamming shut as soon as Fred's heel cleared the frame.

Headquarters had been a very good guess on Fred's part. As he and his squad mounted a short set of metal stairs, he could see the whole operations. Tunnels that looked twice as wide as a metro lined the walls at the base of the cavern like they were in an anthill. He saw a few shuttles hover in and a few hover out. Trams as well. Cerberus personnel in armor and black thermal body gloves hurriedly unloaded and loaded cargo, but mostly the latter. LED strips lined the walls, and the loading zones were lit by floodlights from the back of trucks. It looked simultaneously long-planned and thrown together.

A track hummed as a tram pulled up just in front of them. The door to the roofless cart slid open, and a sharp woman in an administrator's jumpsuit stepped off. She read three names Fred did not recognize off a datapad, then Rufus Wheeler and Sari Kadek. She beckoned them onto the cart. Wheeler looped his arm under Kadek's shoulder to help her the last few steps, gave Fred a glance and a nod, and left with the rest.

"Mister Shannon. You and I will be taking the next tram."

Not concerned with making the noise, Fred cleared his throat before he spoke. He was too afraid of it cracking. He read the name "Olson" on her suit, but nothing else indicated her station aside from the sophistication of her dress.

"Sir, what rank are you?"

"No rank. And not your superior." Her expression remained as hard as it had been the second she stepped off the tram, and her eyes were so focused she might have been trying to see the neurons firing in Fred's brain. "The director, however, has requested someone of your ability."

"My ability, sir?"

"Olson. And you are rated as a combat engineer, no?"

"Yes, s-…" Unconvincingly, he faked clearing his throat. Olson, her eyes like black glass, seemed to notice while not caring.

"Electrochemical focus, but they had me running combat maintenance on Atlas mechs."

Olson remained completely stoic as another tram pulled up behind them. She stepped back onto it, her back as straight as a broomstick.

"Very good. If you'd please."

It didn't feel like hesitation that was pushing back against Fred as he entered the tram, feeling like he was doing so in slowed time. There was no doubt that he'd come all this way to continue serving Cerberus, and that he could not possibly refuse and live. There was something else gumming up his joints and frosted his muscles. Like the next great door of his destiny lay open before him, and a gust was flowing through the cracks, trying to knock him on his ass. Or maybe just slow him.

Olson, who Fred got the impression perceived the world sped up by half, had evidently waited long enough, and with a flicker of her omni-tool set the tram into motion. Fred hadn't been fully onboard for more than a millisecond, and embarrassingly stumbled as the tram jolted forward. Fred was surprised when he saw clear signs of disgust manifest around her nose and eyes for just a second before she put on her steely mask again.

Cerberus' ramshackle operation faded quickly as the tram entered a stark black tunnel. With the limited night vision that his hood gave him, Fred could see that the transit tunnel featured thick meshed cable bolted to the ceiling and the tram track on the ground, and nothing else. It screamed rush job, but in the Cerberus operating manual even rush jobs were meant to provide two things: quality and disposability. It had to be able to function just as impeccably as any standard Alliance equipment, with the added buck of being able to be broken down or detonated in a second.

It took only five minutes to reach their destination. The tram wasn't particularly fast, but that rack was short, and when they stopped it was definitely at its end. Fred and Olson had traveled downwards, sharply around a corner, and then downward further to where they found another small tram station bolted to the rock and the tail of the tunnel. He saw a massive door that looked more like the airlock of a ship and the walls that rose around it that also vanished behind the cover of rock. Almost as if it were entirely separate from the base itself.

Fred stepped off, and a nod was all he got from Olson before she sent the tram off back the way it came with her on it. He almost asked the obvious question of where he was to go next, but obvious questions weren't the type Cerberus personnel were allowed to ask. Doing so raised questions of their own of a person's usefulness to the organization.

The great doors opened for him, slowly and creaking. As did the second set behind them. He entered, and his suit alerted him to multiple x-ray and MRI scans bouncing off his body. His hunch about being inside a ship proved more and more disturbingly accurate, as he saw the thick mylar coatings typical in the walls of starships, and a number of cramped access corridors tightly guarded by nearly a dozen Cerberus troopers wearing some of the fiercest power armor Fred knew the organization fielded. Their formation resembled that of an honor guard, and Fred felt his stomach knot. One of the snarling heads of Cerberus very well might be waiting for him.

_But who could it be_, he wondered? Could the Illusive Man have fled to Earth after the fall of Kronos Station? Cerberus officers squashed rumors about their leader more aggressively than anything else, but the fact that they existed must have meant something big. Had he predicted that the allies would be victorious, spiriting himself away to Earth to prepare to lead Cerberus against the weakened Alliance? Or he could be truly dead, as some Cerberus troopers had whispered as quietly as they could manage. In that case, it could be another one of the Illusive Man's lieutenants, but that line of thinking raised even more questions. Oleg Petrovsky was a prisoner of war, and Heinz Griske had vanished before Earth had been invaded. Kei Leng was dead, and Miranda Lawson had masterminded the mass defection of the crew of _Normandy SR-2 _after Commander Shepard had destroyed the Collectors. Who did that leave?

He entered into the buried ship, his only indicator being the arrangement of the guards implying where he was not permitted to go. Before him, the holographic interface on one of the doors flashed from the orange of pending permission to a permissive green. It was flanked by two final guards who conducted to final scans with their suits before permitting him in.

The hatch that connected to the tunnel could have been anywhere, from the bridge to a maintenance corridor on the lowest deck, so Fred had difficulty ascertaining where on the ship he was. The shepherding of the guards seemed to indicate he was being brought to somewhere of importance, perhaps the main machine shop or even a captain's quarters. But the examining tables and medical chairs told him that he was in the med bay.

Just one of these tables was occupied, a tall silhouetted figure sitting hunched over on its edge. The light in the room was harsher than outside, and for a moment Fred could not tell if the figure was a man or a woman. But from their back and skull, massive cables protruded and snaked up into the ceiling.

"Operative Shannon. I appreciate your coming," said the ship's VI. _No_, he thought, _Not the ship. She looked up, and her lips moved, and a computer's voice came up._ He could see her more clearly now. Her hair was silver, as was her uniform. And her skin and eyes. A machine.

"My squad made our way here as soon as we received the codes…sir," said Fred, unsure of how to address this machine. Even before he'd seen it, his interaction with Olsen had scrambled any assumptions he'd had about how the post-Illusive Man Cerberus command structure would shape up. But it was difficult to assume a person behind this many walls and power-armored guards wasn't someone he should be respecting.

If it was a someone, after all.

"And it is a good thing that you did. Even with the Alliance and their allies weakened, Earth will not be safe for us for very long. Whatever stragglers remain will have to join us soon or be left behind."

The gynoid stepped towards him, the cables and wires rooted into its head spiraling up into the ceiling like some misshapen halo. Even with its stark metal coloring, the machine's body dimension were convincingly human, and seeing the machinery dug into the spot where the human spine met with the brain horrified Fred. It reminded him of how he felt seeing Augmented troopers under the helmet.

Her machine movements seemed hostile to Fred, but when she reached personal distance of him, she extended a hand to his shoulder. "I'm sure you have many questions, Operative Shannon. It is the nature of being Cerberus to have them and not ask them, but this is a new world. Cerberus will find a new place in this brave new world, and the chosen survivors deserve to be appraised of this situation. You are one of these chosen, Fred, and you have a special place among them."

Fred swallowed. He thanked God for his mask, because under it he was sweating bullets. "I'll do humanity proud, sir."

"You will," said the machine as its metal approximation for a mouth simulated a smile. "But I can sense you still have questions. Please ask them."

"Of course sir, and forgive me for my ignorance, but…who are you?"

The machine's face returned to a neutral state. "In the absence of our former leader, and with the initiation of PANDORA Protocol, I am Cerberus' new director. My name is Doctor Eva Coré. I am a founding member of Cerberus, along with the Illusive Man. You may address me as 'Doctor' or 'Director'."

Fred did vaguely know that name, but only so far as to know it was a name he shouldn't know too much about. The knowledge had come from rumors surrounding the foundation of Cerberus, and as anything even remotely close to the subject of the Illusive Man's past and identity, it was firmly taboo. A ghost with a name shrouded in black ink returning in a metal body to lead the remainder of Cerberus on some new crusade sounded more like an idea he could sell for millions to Hollywood. Or the new horrifying reality he lived in. After the Reapers, anything was possible.

But he had seen outside. Earth was dead, or at best dying. Humankind needed strong leadership and it needed it now. Cerberus was still here to give them that, as it had always promised, and Fred was still alive to give all he had to Cerberus as he had promised.

"Of course, Dr. Coré," said Fred, finding a serviceable reserve of resolution. "It's been months since I was with a Cerberus cell larger than my own unit, but I'm sure I can speak for all of the soldiers still with us that we're ready to go on this last leg of the journey towards humanity's salvation."

"That is what is feels like, isn't it? With the Reapers gone, the story of our people is in a sort of epilogue. Does that sound right?" asked Director Coré, turning her back on Fred.

"In a sense, sir," he replied.

Coré sighed. A basic human gesture like that coming from a machine both unnerved Fred and set him more at ease with his new superior. "That is of course what I meant when I called those who remain my 'chosen few.' I'm not a spiritual person; someone who was would find being in this position rather difficult. But everyone here now survived the prescribed end of our species. Your survival was earned, and you were chosen by nature to carry on."

"And why was I chosen by you, sir?"

Coré turned back, and Fred saw her smile had returned. There was a light in her mechanical eyes with a human warmth to them, not artificial light. She opened her palm, and her omni-tool displayed a holographic representation of the Sol system sprang open. Points in the disk of the system began to light up: Mars, Ceres, Titan, Neptune, Io, Venus, and a dozen others scattered about asteroids and space stations. Cerberus' plan of attack.

"This protocol was meant to be activated in the event that Cerberus could rapidly seize a power vacuum present in the Sol system. The circumstances are beyond unideal, but the moment is here. The PANDORA Protocol will reinvigorate the human race and put Cerberus at its head. I need you, Fred Shannon, to help me open some boxes."


End file.
